Kitty Chronicles
by Blubbery Blueberry
Summary: Sometimes, first impressions are wrong. This story is how Hinata Hyuuga learned that the black-hearted, most selfish, and overall scariest man she's ever known does have a weak spot. Sasuhina
1. Chapter 1

Not many people knew this, but sometimes even the coldest of faces and the stoniest of hearts were only facades. A scowl could merely be an awkward lapse of social aptitude, a glare similarly misinterpreted as a show of menace when it could just as likely be an unfortunately timed symptom of interpersonal retardation. What one believed to be killer intent may as well be just a sudden blast of self-consciousness. A bloody sword in the face could instead be a shaky salutation of some sort, horrifyingly misleading as the gesture was. Expounding upon this notion, nothing from any such specimen of apparent negativity and evil could be taken point-blank.

This is what Hinata Hyuuga believed she learned the day she found herself in the arms of one Sasuke Uchiha.

It was a completely foreign feeling to be enfolded in his arms, carefully tucked against his cool body like a coveted treasure of some sort; she'd been almost completely certain that the sensation was some variation of mirage caused by chakra depletion or extreme thirst. She was bent more towards the former, as the rain slowly trickling about her body and into her slightly open mouth soothed all of her desire for water quite satisfactorily. Her chakra levels, however, were dangerously low and even though her Byakugan was deactivated she could tell that there were some blockages in her system that were preventing her from escaping her current circumstances. She even questioned her chances of outliving the situation.

He was uncharacteristically gentle despite his face remaining a stone solid mask of stoicism, his strides fluid so as to not disturb her, but she was sure that it was only because he had no idea who she was or even _what _she truly was. The wind lightly batted at her face as he ran across the deserted wastelands, probably already miles from the obscure little village he had lifted her from just an hour ago, and she tried hard to stay still, hoping that perhaps the dark-haired man holding her would eventually forget her presence and release her.

A sudden lightning strike flashed through the dark sky and a responding bolt of furious thunder shook the air. Hinata flinched at the terrible sound, the echoing aftershock ringing in her sensitive ears and her delicate head ached. Forgetting her plan, she squirmed uncomfortably against the rock hard abdomen she was held to and hissed in pain when one of her broken legs was jostled by her shifting.

A large hand patted her head gingerly as an awkward attempt at comfort, but Hinata was probably more discomfited by the action than by her physical pain. Large silvery eyes looked upwards cautiously, but his own pitch black ones remained steadfast and glaring at the nonexistent pathway stretching towards the mountains in the horizon. She was about to edge her head away from the hand as best she could but then his fingers became more confident, rubbing at her ear soothingly, and she soon found herself – to her horror – nearly vibrating with pleasure at his caress.

She looked up again and saw a faint smirk glimmering on his pale lips even when his eyes maintained their customary stale glaze. Hinata stiffened, trying to break from the state of pure bliss his touch had given her, and her tail twitched distractedly.

Had she been human at that moment, she would have undoubtedly blushed a thousand variations of red and perhaps explored some shades of violet before collapsing into a comatose state, but alas, she was not a human at that particular moment and was incapable of performing according to her perceived character.

Instead, her traitorous body mustered another purr and edged closer to the Uchiha's pale fingers.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Her mind whirled with an excess of emotions, the most prominent of which was utter horror. She could barely remember what had happened to her, just flashes of enemy shinobi surrounding her squadron and a sudden blast of chakra coursing through her every pore. She recalled the sharp pain she had felt all over her body and in her bones, like steel needles slicing through every nerve she had from in her skin to the deepest reaches of her inner tissues, and the strange feeling of being compressed until she could barely breathe. White fire had licked at her from the inside-out and even now there was a slight after burn thankfully contained in her thoracic cavity.

But even as some invisible flame melted and re-forged her entire skeletal system, the exterior of her body felt like it was being bathed in polar ice. Her legs wouldn't hold up the storm of fire and ice nor could any other limb make movements beyond twitches of agony, so she had found herself on the hard stone floor of what looked like a run-down teahouse for what seemed like many hours with only the capacity of squirming helplessly like a fish out of water.

She couldn't remember the presence of her captors or the ones who had tortured her so ruthlessly, but she did know that she couldn't sense her teammates or any other shinobi in the decrepit teashop as she lay on the ground writhing pathetically. There was no noise – not even her own screams, which she was sure she had let out – and only the heaviness of silence became her burden in addition to the discomfort she already experienced.

The tempest brewing inside of her had only just dimmed down when a flash of lightning burned through her pupils and the sound of rain sloshing down streets and gutters came into her ears.

Surprised at this new development and relieved that she hadn't gone deaf, she had raised her face from the floor as gently as she could to see who or what had brought in the sudden influx of sound but once again lowered her eyes when she realized that hooded strangers had invaded the emptiness of the teahouse. The sudden spike in chakra in the air was noticeable and she knew that they were all ninja of impeccable caliber, possibly more refined than her own skill-level. Wondering if she should be more worried that they were the ones who had done this to her or if they had worse intentions, she weakly attempted to wriggle to a more sheltering area of the teahouse floor.

Unfortunately, at that very moment when she attempted to find a darker corner to hide in, one of the hooded figures swiped a lazy hand across the hood and a black head of hair peeked out from under the rough cloth. Hinata squinted, wondering why this particular head looked nostalgic.

Something about their appearance was strange, however; they seemed taller, stronger, and more intimidating than what they should have appeared. Of course, Hinata normally saw S-class missing nin as impossible fixtures of power scarcely less frightening than a lightning storm aimed at only her, but this time it was like Susanoo himself hurling divine retribution unto her. Needless to say, she was utterly terrified by their sudden interference in the midst of her mission especially since she then recognized the lightless charcoal eyes suddenly raking over her prone form with a terrifyingly emotionless gaze.

Letting out a squeak that sounded devastatingly more undignified than even what she was accustomed to when dealing with Naruto, Hinata had attempted to hurriedly drag her somehow nonresponsive lower torso and attached limbs under a rickety table or freakishly large chair but then realized that her forearms were almost just as incapacitated and a shock of new pain charged through a strange appendage she never realized existed somewhere near her hindquarters.

A strange glint entered Uchiha Sasuke's voided eyes and Hinata prayed fervently that it wasn't a signal that he was heading towards a killing-spree or something along those lines. He came closer, slowly, as if trying not to disturb a weakened animal – prey, she thought helplessly as she squirmed under his glare – before pouncing and killing the unfortunate creature mercilessly. She trembled as he walked up to her and then kneeled to her level with the strangest expression on his usually blank face.

It seemed like his facial muscles were in battle amongst each other, his lips twitching miniscule movements and his eyebrows furrowed slightly. She wouldn't have noticed these obscure details if she hadn't been a kunoichi or a Hyuuga trained from birth to _see_, but the fact that his infamous Noh mask had cracked just a bit shocked her utterly. And to augment her horror, his statue-like face was ironically more animated than Hinata had ever seen it.

"Sasuke-kun?"

Red hair peeked out from another hood and curious scarlet eyes met Hinata's for a scant moment.

"What a raggedy little thing," the girl with spectacles said with a tint of derision. "Let's go get some dango or something. Suigetsu's getting a bit edgy."

"Hn."

"Sasuke-kun?"

It was then when he turned his head and thankfully reattached his intrusive gaze at something other than Hinata herself. Something in the stone eyes must've disturbed the other girl enough for her to giggle uneasily and scurry off towards the other hooded figures, all the while promising the Uchiha a hot cup of tea and some red-bean dango.

When he re-concentrated himself on staring at her – with her still lying helplessly on her belly like some kind of upturned tortoise or snail – she realized that something was infinitely wrong. His expression was still unreadable and the small flickers of motion at the corners of his lips and eyes made her wonder if he recognized her, if he knew she was a Konoha ninja, if he figured he should just kill her and end her suffering.

But alas, he didn't suddenly have an epiphany about any of the above.

He instead slowly reached for her head with a very large, calloused, and ultimately very intimidating hand.

She flinched but he didn't stop his careful survey of her head, fingers that were capable of ending her gently rubbing at her hair and her ears –

Ears?

Now, Hinata couldn't say she was the best of students at the Academy but she could claim that her knowledge of the human anatomy was rather satisfactory due to the basic chakra-point locations her Byakugan training had made her aware of. And as far as she knew, as a human, she was to have a pair of ears on either side of her head and _not _on top.

_Oh gods… _

She forced herself to look into the usually fathomless, lightless eyes of the man patting her head and was utterly surprised at the two things she found in his gaze.

One, his eyes maintained that strange glimmer she had seen before and now seemed to have a very reflective quality in them.

Two, what she assumed was her own reflection peering out of his black eyes was not quite what she expected.

She saw a cat with dark fur and shaky lavender eyes staring back in terror before finally letting herself succumb to unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

She felt warm and even comfortable under the layers of soft cloth strewn about her. It felt like she was at home again in her bed with blankets wrapped around her like a cocoon; the soothing warmth of her position in the darkness nearly made her refuse to open her eyes and get about with her day. Dreams swept about her conscious and she smiled faintly in her half-slumber when she saw a woman with thick black hair smiling at her. She could feel the delicate caresses of sunshine on her eyelids, the equally warm and bright grin of a boy with eyes more vibrant than a summer sky, and the crackles of a particular fire she remembered cooking on and sharing with her teammates. She could smell the scent of freshly oiled weapons and the faint flickers of an herbal concoction with a dash of lavender, the remaining aroma of rice-paper and ink, even the slight musk of sweat and tang of lightning…

Immediately her eyes opened with a terror she didn't remember the cause of. She was expecting one of the Main House attendants, Neji, Hanabi, even her father to be at her bedroom door scolding her for her sleeping in, but instead she was greeted by a sight that made her wish she was deeply entrenched in dreams again. There was almost no nightmare, she thought glumly, that surpassed the one she was experiencing as of that moment with her awake.

"Oi Karin, stop burning my fish!"

"I'm not, jerk! Go get your own!"

All hoods were gone, Hinata noticed, but their ability to intimidate her without even looking her way hadn't dissipated.

A crick in her neck suddenly appeared and she tried to stretch it out. Her body shifted reluctantly and she was struck with sharp pain even more excruciating than the troublesome knot in her neck. Hissing, she sank back into the blankets and fervently wished her broken leg wasn't as shattered as it was.

There was an abrupt silence and she hoped that her cry of pain wasn't as loud as she thought it was. But then, nearly silent footsteps came closer to where her head was and she stilled in her quickly lessening hopes that the approaching figure would mistake her as asleep instead of conscious enough for more torture. Her eyes were shut almost comically tight as she prayed that she was suitably faux-sleeping.

Instead, her nose felt something tantalizing caress it and Hinata couldn't tell if it was just a scent or an actual tangible object brushing her skin. From what she could tell, it smelled like fried fish and felt like it, too. Her stomach growled impatiently as it recalled its need for sustenance – she didn't remember when her last meal was, exactly – and her eyes blinked involuntarily open in embarrassment as the beastly sound entered her ears.

She almost wanted to close her eyes again when she saw that the telltale pale skin and dark countenance looming above her with an expressionless face. He was kneeling down facing her and between those skilled and deadly fingers was a skewer of freshly cooked fish, which he was prodding her with.

"Meow!" she cried in shock, trying to back away from the dead eyes of the fish now poking into her nose uncomfortably.

Something moved on the statue's face, she was sure, and she was nearly completely certain that it was the corner of his mouth twitching upwards when he observed her reaction to his offering. Slightly indignant at his taunting, she batted a paw at the fish before stopping abruptly when the appendage was in her line of sight.

And then she remembered that she was somehow a cat.

Disgruntled, Hinata threw herself back into the blankets, trying to burrow herself back into the warm security of her dreams. Or maybe, she thought tentatively, her being a feline with Uchiha Sasuke poking fish into her nose was the actual dream. A strange dream, she had to admit, but there had been stranger ones including a nightmare – or fantasy, she allowed – of Naruto dancing half-naked with a veil of ramen wrapped around his waist. She'd nearly passed out again from the mere memory of it when she gasped awake. Embarrassment was never an appealing emotion to be worn according to the Hyuuga clan, and so Hinata always tried to clear her face of it despite her propensity to be bashful at the smallest of things. Luckily, her face was covered in dark fur this time and wasn't very likely to reveal the blush that always came so easily.

"Ehhh Sasuke-kun, that thing's getting blood all over your robes!"

Hinata squeaked at the shrill voice that suddenly cut through the soothing crackles of a campfire, hissing again when her injuries were jostled uncomfortably with her flinches. A large hand suddenly but gently stilled her movements and she felt herself being lifted from her warm nest of musk and lightning.

"Karin, shut up," the Uchiha said monotonously as he began unwinding a bandage on one of Hinata's legs slowly. "Go heat up some water."

Opening her weary eyes, Hinata almost squeaked again in absolute terror as her gaze met the darkest eyes she'd ever seen. Almost instinctually, she tried to bat away his approaching hands and gasped when sharp claws detracted from her paw and left a trail of thin red lines across his porcelain skin. She trembled helplessly, expecting for him to attack or kill her in retribution, but still attempted to escape his solid grasp even though she found that he was holding her as carefully as one would do with a newborn baby.

"Stay still," he scolded in that bland manner only he could truly add into his speech. He didn't flinch from the sudden appearance of crimson lines cut onto his hand.

Though his glance over her was impassive, she felt herself obey immediately with stiffened limbs and wide eyes, letting her body flop onto his uselessly. She thought she heard him snort at her awkward adherence to his command, but since his face didn't change at all, she was sure it was another hallucination of hers. Just as tenderly as before, the Uchiha avenger unraveled all the other strips of cloth that he had presumably wrapped around her as makeshift bandages and removed the splint he'd aligned with her broken leg. He had a pile of fresh wrappings by his knee that she assumed were to replace the sullied ones he'd taken off of her wounds.

But instead of reapplying the bandages like she thought he would, he instead turned and glared across the fire disapprovingly when the red-haired girl didn't return with the hot water he had ordered a few moments ago.

"Karin."

A few snickers were his only answer and Hinata watched the Uchiha's face tighten into a slight scowl when he noticed the redhead was nowhere to be seen. The raucous laughter continued obnoxiously until Sasuke threw a kunai with impeccable aim towards the source. Hinata winced as she anticipated the sound of metal sinking into flesh; she remembered that Sasuke never missed a target, even back at the Academy. However, a loud splash echoed in the cave they were all gathered about and the fire flickered as if someone had thrown water onto it.

"Eh, Sasuke, I think this is the first time Karin's wanted to get away from you!" a still sniggering man's voice giggled with mirth. He didn't seem too upset that Sasuke had just attacked him as if it was a normal occurrence. "I guess she was jealous of your little kitty-friend."

The Uchiha ignored the taunting tone the man had spoken to him with and instead looked at his other companion calmly. "Juugo."

Hinata peered through the fire and her eyes widened when she took note of the large, orange-haired man getting up with a water flask and a small pot in his hands. He was even larger than Sasuke and she couldn't even imagine that he would look smaller through the eyes of her human-self. His big hands were deft and skilled even when doing simple tasks like pouring water into a pot over the fire and it made her shiver a bit when she thought of how many ways the giant could kill her without even stirring a bit of chakra.

Noticing her small quakes of apprehension, Uchiha did yet another uncharacteristic thing; his fingers made their way to her ears and stroked the soft fur there gently as if in comfort. He was so delicate with her and mindful of all the injuries she seemed to possess that Hinata felt herself release another unwilling purr. It was all so soothing that it never occurred to her that it was odd that Uchiha Sasuke, one of the deadliest and most dangerous ninja in the infamous Bingo Book, seemed so accustomed to caring for small animals – cats in particular – and completely nonchalant about it as if he did it often.

"Sasuke-san, the hot water."

The man with orange hair was several feet away from her and in his hand was a small square of cloth along with the pot of quietly steaming water. His eyes, now within her range of sight, were soft and warm like his hair and Hinata slowly forgot about her intimidation towards him as the Uchiha continued to pacify her with hypnotizing caresses.

When he stopped abruptly, she almost mewed out in discomfort now that her distraction from both her body's pain and her current situation had disappeared. However, though he neglected her ears, he hadn't forgotten about the rest of her. Softly, he washed patches of her fur and Hinata noticed that a lot of blood that had been invisible in her black fur had reappeared on the cloth he was using to clean her. There was so much crimson that she realized that most of the blood was probably from her human-self and not as a cat, especially since most of her cuts were superficial and her cat-body didn't have the capacity to hold let alone lose so much blood. The slight narrowing of Uchiha's eyes told her that he realized it too, but he didn't stop wiping away the grime and gore.

After sponge-bathing her – Hinata blushed heavily again, thanking her fur-covered face for hiding her bashfulness – Sasuke dutifully redressed her wounds and adjusted her splint, finally laying her back into what she then realized was a rumpled pile of his ninja clothes, as Karin the red haired girl had said. She nearly passed out from this revelation, her mind wondering furiously what the girls back in Konoha would think when she returned and told them of her newest adventure of being bathed by the notorious Uchiha or wrapped in his clothes that still smelled tantalizingly of his scent. It was so scandalous and unbelievable that Hinata made up her mind that no one would hear of the details of her tale despite the fact that she'd have to write up her mission-report about the entire event, anyway.

The last Uchiha, before departing from her side, gave a final ear-rub and Hinata found herself purring again. Self-control had never been entirely out of her grasp, with the constant blushing and stuttering around Naruto as the only exception nowadays, but she lost the struggle to not purr with contentedness when Sasuke's rough hands explored her head.

"Tch!"

Hinata cut herself off as she heard the sound of disapproval from across the cave.

"Heh, Karin, you're really stooping so low as to be jealous of a stray cat? This is hilarious," the mocking voice from before laughed. "The thing's gotten more out of Sasuke than you have in all your years of traveling with him!"

Hinata watched as the fiery redhead returned from her trek outside of the cave and chucked a sizeable rock at the still snickering man. Again, instead of the thud she expected, a splash washed over the cave.

"Shut up, Suigetsu!" said Karin furiously, shoving her glasses up again. "Sasuke-kun's just taking pity on it, just like all the other strays we've picked up! Soon, he'll ditch it like he would to you!"

Flinching reflexively from the pure venom emanating from Karin's voice, Hinata attempted to bolt for the exit of the cave no matter how futile it was when she broke from her earlier daze and realized just how screwed she was. She was stuck in a small enclosed space with certified psychos with short tempers, pointy ninja weapons, and apparently very bad symptoms of some abnormal mutation of lovesickness. Karin, the redhead, seemed to completely disregard any kind of teammate bond she should've formed with Suigetsu in obvious preference for the Uchiha. As this thought sank into her mind, Hinata resolved to leave this hellish den of completely insane human beings. Of course, she had to correct that conclusion the moment she finished thinking it when she saw a man form from splatters of water on the stone ground, a feral grin etched toothily on his pale face. These people weren't even human…

Uncharacteristically, she cursed inside her mind when she let the fact that even _she _wasn't human.

The pads of her paws were still sore and scabbing when she quickly limped towards the cave entrance, but she found it easy to ignore the pain especially when she was reminded that she was separated from both her teammates and true safety. Her wounds seemed trivial in comparison with the prospect of returning home even in her current form. Neither Hinata nor her team had completed their assigned mission properly and now they were cut off from each other and she feared that Kiba and Shino were dead or perhaps even worse off. Not only had she failed her village and teammates, but she had definitively lost face for the Hyuuga. Her heart bore this idea heavily like chains made of broken glass; it was her fault that they had hesitated from making a decisive blow upon their opponent, the one who presumably inflicted her current condition. Her own weakness, be it in terms of ninja skill or ethics, condemned them all to their present fates and she couldn't help but blame herself.

This epiphany cascaded over her, causing her to forget the fact that her hind-leg was shattered and so she stepped rather forcefully on that very same appendage as she attempted to escape.

It was almost tragic the way she yowled in pain as she scuttled towards the mouth of the cave, completely disintegrating any pride she had as a kunoichi known for stealth or a girl known for being an inconspicuous wallflower. But if there was one thing she knew she could still excel at, it was the fact that she could endure and persevere. She attempted to crawl this time.

"Karin, shut up," Sasuke said once again, his voice nearer than Hinata had expected or ever wanted. "You should go rest up. We're leaving by sunrise."

With a demure blush suddenly painting the girl's cheeks, she almost seemed like a completely different character altogether. "Sasuke-kun, if you're so worried about my health, then I'll gladly go get by beauty sleep!"

The bespectacled kunoichi sauntered off, pointedly glaring at a mocking Suigetsu's face before settling down in a bedroll that was facing Sasuke's position by the fire quite obviously. She lay down on her bedding, glasses off, and squinted rather unattractively at the broody Uchiha's shadowy figure with a light red tint on her skin.

"And you, cat," he muttered into Hinata's perked ears huskily. "Stop trying to play around. You'll have time for that when you heal."

If she wasn't already astounded by his gentleness when he picked her up without aggravating her leg, Hinata nearly fainted again when he tucked her into his open shirt and she felt the hard pectorals of his body pressing against her again.

"I have to make sure you don't go off again. Stay put. Good night."

His brusque comments and accompanying glare didn't match his careful movements in order to not cause her pain. It was a strange dichotomy that Hinata found in her cousin Neji oftentimes and the familiarity of character made her relax just the slightest bit even when she was now quite firmly in captivity. There were apparently more layers to these stoic men than what was superficially perceived, Hinata thought. They reminded her of onions especially in the way they sometimes caused her to weep and this idea caused her to giggle although what came out of her cat-mouth was more like an impatient huff of air. Her light laughter, nonsensical and random as it was, caused the Uchiha to stare at her again with those fathomless pits he called eyes. The moment he met her own pearly eyes, she ducked shyly downwards and unfortunately brushed his stomach with her face, nearly making Hinata scamper from his shirt in terror once more. A firm hand held her down as if he knew what she was thinking.

The Uchiha then blew at the fire with a thin stream of nearly invisible chakra so that its vibrant flames died but still provided ample warmth. When he lay down in his bedroll after unstrapping his katana with one hand, Hinata was terrified that he would crush her with his body as he shifted in his slumber. She found herself terribly aware of every ridge, plane, and nuance of his skin and flesh lying underneath her paws as well. The heat of his body enveloped her and only augmented the warmth building on her furry cheeks and Hinata wondered if she would ever be able to calm the thrumming of her heart. However, hours passed in the semi-darkness as the fire dimmed and she felt herself succumbing to the lulling sound of a rhythmic pulse beneath her. It was only when the sun barely stretched a single ray across the starry skies that Hinata realized it was _his _heart beating so steadfastly underneath the pale skin she lay upon.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time she'd woken up again, the sun was high in the sky and she was surrounded by warmth and a scent reminiscent of the electrically charged smell of lightning before a thunderstorm. With her mind slightly still befuddled and her body still aching slightly, it was difficult to pinpoint where she was exactly. There was a stinging in a leg she knew she shouldn't have had and an itch on what felt like a tail. Memories of the past few days trickled into her mind as she found herself naturally drifting from sleep, chronologically filing themselves into her brain. She was somehow metamorphosed into a cat and she was separated from her team after a particularly humiliating battle in which she had lost. By some kind of wrong turn of events, she was rescued from her predicament and even _healed _by the most unlikely of allies. Hinata couldn't tell if she was extremely lucky to have been found and aided during her time of need or completely and utterly screwed for finding herself under the strangely gentle care of the Uchiha who broke the heart of her most loved one. And then, she slowly remembered that Sasuke had planned to depart from the cave at sunrise and when she opened her eyes, she was rather surprised to find herself still tucked to his body securely.

"The nearest village is five or so minutes away, Sasuke-kun."

There was a brief nod in response to the lone female member's uncharacteristically professional report before the Uchiha turned his attention to the little parcel carefully enfolded into his robes.

His calculating gaze scanned over her penetratingly and she squirmed under its dark intensity, her ears flicking apprehensively as she watched his face twitch again. It almost looked like he was concentrating on fighting something – an actual expression possibly, Hinata mused in an uncharacteristically sardonic manner. She felt strangely irritated at the fact she was at his mercy, bereft of even a human form with her ninja capabilities to fight her way back home and to her teammates. Weak as she knew she was in her human body, she was less than useless as a wounded kitten. Thus, the glint in the Uchiha's eyes, she was sure, was really the shine of a satisfied sadist.

"I hear that this town's known for its hot springs, Sasuke. We should stay for a few hours at least," a man with white hair said, twirling his absurdly large sword whimsically. "I'd like a good soak before we track down what's-his-face."

"We should also restock our supplies," added Juugo softly as a bird twittered on his outstretched finger.

With a consenting grunt towards his teammates, the Uchiha began picking up his pace, darting from tree to tree with an enviable dexterity. Hinata barely felt jostled at all and simply enjoyed the sensation of leaping across the forest in relative comfort; it felt akin to flying. As further testament to his litheness and overall outstanding ninja skills, she was tempted to fall back asleep while still being carried.

It felt like only a few minutes had passed when Hinata felt warm hands scoop her from her comfortable position, a tentative finger brushing over the top of her head as she slowly drifted away from her dreams. She meowed a bit in shock as her little paws couldn't find anything solid beneath them and squirmed with discomfort when the fingers around her torso tightened at her ungraceful movements.

"Stop moving."

His stern voice reminded her of her father's reprimands and her body automatically froze.

"I'm going to set you down for a moment," the Uchiha said, his tone somehow softening when he noticed her head looking downwards. "Then we'll get to the hot springs to clean you up."

She was gently deposited onto a long wooden bench, her sore paws unsteady at first because of the tired muscles and pads still aching from abuse. The stings of her wounds were still threading through every tendon stretched in her feline body and the sharpness of the cuts littering her flank suddenly redoubled as she unsteadily stood on three legs. Hinata hissed at the pain and avoided the Uchiha's eyes when she saw his head turn towards her abruptly. She wondered if this was the ideal time to plan and execute an escape. Her mind, though much more lucid than before, seemed to find it difficult to concentrate on ninja-like getaway ideas, however, and somehow she didn't find the Uchiha's current caretaking of her quite as disturbing as she should have.

The scent of masculine sweat and soap filled her sensitive nose and her ears heard the voices of human men and the sound of running water. Looking about with wide eyes, Hinata took in the sights suddenly apparent to her.

Bars of soap lay around either bare or in small plastic bags, suds still sticking stubbornly. Towels of various shades of colors were carelessly strewn everywhere, from identical wooden benches to locker-hooks to the damp heads of several men. Articles of clothing were carelessly shoved into metal lockers, shoe-strings hanging out from the doors as they were locked in. Bare arms and torsos were abundant in her line of sight, lending her peeks of uneven tan-lines or hidden scars. Slightly shiny patches of skin glowed under the overhead lights and taut muscles rippled under masculine flesh like powerful waves.

Falling into a daze of sorts, Hinata gasped when she realized where she was, panicking as she almost observed something she'd never seen before and hadn't until she was safely married to someone – preferably Naruto. She pulled away her gaze desperately, wanting to demand the possibly psychotic Uchiha why he'd brought her to the _men's changing room _of what she presumed was the hot springs he had mentioned earlier. Furiously, she charged herself to glare as sharply as her cousin or father were known for in order to express her discontent nonverbally with this new development, but the vision that met her opaque eyes struck her dumb again.

Clean-cut planes of what seemed to be raw marble stretched across a human frame, the smooth pale surfaces peppered with small and relatively insignificant scars. Well sculpted muscles and those pectorals Hinata had just moments before laid against flexed with hardly suppressed strength. But what really stood out against those stretches of creamy skin and masculine musculature was…

A pair of cherry blossom petals.

Suddenly, her mind was wiped as blank as her nearly colorless eyes and all that seemed significant in that moment in her life was the fact that she was practically face to face with the parts of the Uchiha's body that all girls in Konoha had dreamed about at least once in their individual lifetimes. If one had asked Hinata before this point in time if she had ever imagined this very image, she would have blushed enough to fill several cadavers with life-blood again. Other less modest and contrarily more shameless girls of her age would have grinned lecherously as they waxed and verbally exalted praises for these appendages. These aforementioned parts were a beautiful shade of pale rose, nearly matching the hue of Haruno Sakura's hair, and just as tender-looking as flower petals. They were most likely slightly stiff from an incoming breeze or change in temperature, but she was reluctantly certain that they were incredibly sensitive anyway as they stood pertly away from his chest and towards her direction.

"N-n-n…"

The boy, completely unaware of the direction her thoughts were treading, was still in the process of removing his clothing when he picked up on his feline companion's whimpering sounds. Turning his dark head to stare inquisitively at Hinata, he almost innocently – if a missing nin with a formidable bloodlust could ever be labelled innocent – approached her in what seemed to be concern if she had bothered to actually focus on reading his facial features and movements. His eyes glinted again with that mysterious shine when she backed away from him and she mistakenly wondered once more if he was really that pleased with her utter terror. She hoped that he wouldn't suddenly decide to kill her and kept her gaze downwards in the hopes that the lack of eye contact would soothe his fury at her perverted-ness. His large hand rose and created a shadow above her, causing her to tremble even more but instead of twisting her furry head and snapping her neck for her impertinence like she'd expected, he gently caressed her ears as if comforting her.

"N-n-n!"

His movement had brought _them _closer. _They _were now just a few inches away from her breathing space as he had stooped down to look at her with those pits of darkness he called eyes.

"Is your leg hurting you again?" he murmured to her, obviously not caring that he looked both completely out of character and probably insane for talking to an animal he'd just illegally brought into the men's changing room. "The hot spring has healing properties."

With those fragmented sentences bearing little to no logic for an outsider who didn't speak the dialect of the socially inept, Uchiha Sasuke then picked up Hyuuga Hinata with no further ado and walked off towards the springs with a towel wrapped haphazardly around his hips and a slight sense of urgency in his stride. She was once again softly cradled to his bare skin, but this time she felt the tips of her ears and sometimes her head brushing against his –

_N-n-nipple!_

Most would believe that Hinata had grown out of her past tendencies of passing out when her emotional boundaries were infringed upon – and for the most part, she had indeed matured enough to control her feelings and physical responses – but really, turning into a cat one moment and brushing against an incredibly bloodthirsty (yet equally attractive) boy's nipple during another is enough emotional stress for any sensible girl, especially one as sheltered and naïve as herself.

This was what Hinata told herself as she felt herself grow faint once more in the presence of the Uchiha, praying yet again that this was all some fantastically nightmarish dream she was experiencing and not at all reality.


End file.
